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GLOUCESTER MOORS 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 



WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

«6c miMzt^ite j^ttU Cambritije 






^^ r 







COPYRIGHT, I90I, BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Z3 



NOTE 

Several poems of this collection, including 
"An Ode in Time of Hesitation," " The Brute," 
and " On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines," have 
appeared in the Atlantic Monthly ; *■*■ Gloucester 
Moors " and " Faded Pictures," in Scribner's Mag- 
azine ; and " The Ride Back," under a different 
title in the Chap-Book, The author is indebted to 
the editors of these periodicals for leave to reprint. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

GLOUCESTER MOORS .... I 

GOOD FRIDAY NIGHT .... 5 

ROAD-HYMN FOR THE START ... 9 

AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION . la 

THE QUARRY ...... 22 

ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIP- 
PINES ...... H 

UNTIL THE TROUBLING OF THE WATERS . 26 

JETSAM ...... 39 

the brute ...... 49 

the menagerie ..... $5 

the golden journey . . . .6a 

heart's wild-flower ... 65 

harmonics ...... 67 

on the river ..... 68 

the bracelet of grass ... 70 

THE DEPARTURE .... 7a 

FADED PICTURES ..... 74 

A GREY DAY ..... 75 

THE RIDE BACK , . . • . 76 



vi CONTENTS 

SONG-FLOWER AND POPPY , , , 80 

I. IN NEW YORK 

II. AT ASSISI 

HOW THE MEAD-SLAVE WAS SET FREE , 86 

A DIALOGUE IN PURGATORY ... 89 

THE DAGUERREOTYPE .... 98 



POEMS 



GLOUCESTER MOORS 

A MILE behind is Gloucester town 
Where the fishing fleets put in, 
A mile ahead the land dips down 
And the woods and farms begin. 
Here, where the moors stretch free 
In the high blue afternoon, 
Are the marching sun and talking sea, 
And the racing winds that wheel and flee 
On the flying heels of June. 

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue, 

Blue is the quaker-maid, 

The wild geranium holds its dew 

Long in the boulder's shade. 

Wax-red hangs the cup 

From the huckleberry boughs, 

In barberry bells the grey moths sup, 

Or where the choke-cherry lifts high up 

Sweet bowls for their carouse. 

Over the shelf of the sandy cove 
Beach-peas blossom late. 



GLOUCESTER MOORS 

By copse and cliff the swallows rove 

Each calling to his mate. 

Seaward the sea-gulls go, 

And the land-birds all are here; 

That green-gold flash was a vireo, 

And yonder flame where the marsh-flags grow 

Was a scarlet tanager. 

This earth is not the steadfast place 
We landsmen build upon ; 
From deep to deep she varies pace, 
And while she comes is gone. 
Beneath my feet 1 feel 
Her smooth bulk heave and dip; 
With velvet plunge and soft upreel 
She swings and steadies to her keel 
Like a gallant, gallant ship. 

These summer clouds she sets for sail. 
The sun is her masthead light, 
She tows the moon like a pinnace frail 
Where her phosphor wake churns bright. 
Now hid, now looming clear. 
On the fiice of the dangerous blue 
The star fleets tack and wheel and veer, 
But on, but on does the old earth steer 
As if her port she knew. 



GLOUCESTER MOORS 3 

God, dear God ! Does she know her port. 

Though she goes so far about ? 

Or blind astray, does she make her sport 

To brazen and chance it out ? 

I watched when her captains passed: 

She were better captainless. 

Men in the cabin, before the mast. 

But some were reckless and some aghast. 

And some sat gorged at mess. 

By her battened hatch I leaned and caught 

Sounds from the noisome hold, — 

Cursing and sighing of souls distraught 

And cries too sad to be told. 

Then I strove to go down and see ; 

But they said, " Thou art not of us ! " 

I turned to those on the deck with me 

And cried, " Give help ! " But they said, " Let 

be: 
Our ship sails faster thus." 

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue. 

Blue is the quaker-maid. 

The alder-clump where the brook comes through 

Breeds cresses in its shade. 

To be out of the moiling street 

With its swelter and its sin ! 



4-. GLOUCESTER MOORS 

Who has given to me this sweet. 
And given my brother dust to eat ? 
And when will his wage come in ? 

Scattering wide or blown in ranks, 
Yellow and white and brown, 
Boats and boats from the fishing banlcs 
Come home to Gloucester town. 
There is cash to purse and spend. 
There are wives to be embraced, 
Hearts to borrow and hearts to lend. 
And hearts to take and keep to the end, 
O little sails, make haste I 

But thou, vast outbound ship of souls. 
What harbor town for thee ? 
What shapes, when thy arriving toUs> 
Shall crowd the banks to see ? 
Shall all the happy shipmates then 
Stand singing brotherly ? 
Or shall a haggard ruthless few 
Warp her over and bring her to, 
While the many broken souls of men 
Fester down in the slaver's pen. 
And nothing to say or do.^ 



GOOD FRIDAY NIGHT 

At last the bird that sang so long 
In twilight circles, hushed his song : 
Above the ancient square 
The stars came here and there. 

Good Friday night ! Some hearts were bowed. 
But some amid the waiting crowjd 
Because of too much youth 
Felt not that mystic ruth ; 

And of these hearts my heart was one : 
Nor when beneath the arch of stone 
With dirge and candle flame 
The cross of passion came. 

Did my glad spirit feel reproof. 
Though on the awful tree aloof, 
Unspiritual, dead, 
Drooped the ensanguined Head. 

To one who stood where myrtles made 
A little space of deeper shade 



6 GOOD FRIDAY NIGHT 

(As I could half descry, 
A stranger, even as I), 

I said, " These youths who bear along 
The symbols of their Saviour's wrong. 
The spear, the garment torn. 
The flaggel, and the thorn, — 

" Why do they make this mummery ? 
Would not a brave man gladly die 
For a much smaller thing 
Than to be Christ and king ? " 

He answered nothing, and I turned. 
Throned in its hundred candles burned 
The jeweled eidolon 
Of her who bore the Son. 

The crowd was prostrate ; still, I felt 
No shame until the stranger knelt; 
Then not to kneel, almost 
Seemed like a vulgar boast. 

I knelt. The doll-face, waxen white, 
Flowered out a living dimness ; bright 
Dawned the dear mortal grace 
Of my own mother's face. 



GOOD FRIDAY NIGHT 

When we were risen up, the street 
Was vacant ; all the air hung sweet 
With lemon-flowers ; and soon 
The sky would hold the moon. 

More silently than new-found friends 
To whom much silence makes amends 
For the much babble vain 
While yet their lives were twain, 

We walked along the odorous hill. 
The light was little yet j his will 
I could not see to trace 
Upon his form or face. 

So when aloft the gold moon broke, 
I cried, heart-stung. As one who woke 
He turned unto my cries 
The anguish of his eyes. 

" Friend ! Master ! " I cried falteringly, 
" Thou seest the thing they make of thee. 

Oh, by the light divine 

My mother shares with thine, 

*' I beg that I may lay my head 
Upon thy shoulder and be fed 



GOOD FRIDAY NIGHT 

With thoughts of brotherhood ! " 
So through the odorous wood, 

More silently than friends new-found 
We walked. At the first meadow bound 
His figure ashen-stoled 
Sank in the moon's broad gold. 



ROAD-HYMN FOR THE START 

Leave the early bells at chime, 
Leave the kindled hearth to blaze, 
Leave the trellised panes where children linger 

out the waking-time, 
Leave the forms of sons and fathers trudging 

through the misty ways. 
Leave the sounds of mothers taking up their sweet 
laborious days. 

Pass them by ! even while our soul 
Yearns to them with keen distress. 
Unto them a part is given ; we will strive to see 

the whole. 
Dear shall be the banquet table where their sing- 
ing spirits press ; 
Dearer be our sacred hunger, and our pilgrim 
loneliness. 

We have felt the ancient swaying 
Of the earth before the sun, 
On the darkened marge of midnight heard sidereal 
rivers playing; 



lo ROAD-HYMN FOR THE START 

Rash it was to bathe our souls there, but we 
plunged and all was done. 

That is lives and lives behind us — lo, our jour- 
ney is begun ! 

Careless where our face is set. 
Let us take the open way. 
What we are no tongue has told us : Errand- 
goers who forget? 
Soldiers heedless of their harry ? Pilgrim people 

gone astray ? 
We have heard a voice cry " Wander ! " That 
was all we heard it say. 

Ask no more : 't is much, 't is much ! 
Down the road the day-star calls ; 
Touched with change in the wide heavens, like a 

. leaf the frost winds touch, 
Flames the failing moon a moment, ere it shrivels 

white and falls ; 
Hid aloft, a wild throat holdeth sweet and sweeter 
intervals. 

Leave him still to easfe in song 
Half his little heart's unrest : 
Speech is his, but we may journey toward the life 
for which we long. 



ROAD-HYMN FOR THE START ii 

God, who gives the bird its anguish, maketh no- 
thing manifest, 

But upon our lifted foreheads pours the boon of 
endless quest. 



AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION 

(After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould 
Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 
186^, at the head of the first enlisted negro regiment, 
the 54th Massachusetts.) 

I 

Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made 

To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, 

And set here in the city's talk and trade 

To the good memory of Robert Shaw, 

This bright March morn I stand, 

And hear the distant spring come up the land ; 

Knowing that what 1 hear is not unheard 

Of this boy soldier and his negro band. 

For all their ga/.e is tixed so stern ahead, 

For all the fatal rhythm of their tread. 

The land they died to save from death and shame 

Trembles and waits, hearing the spring's great 

name, 
And by her pangs these resolute ghosts arc stirred. 

II 

Through street and mall the tides of people go 
Heedless; the trees upon the Common show 



AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION 13 

No hint of green ; but to my listening heart 

The still earth doth impart 

Assurance of her jubilant emprise, 

And it is clear to my long-searching eyes 

That love at last has might upon the skies. 

The ice is runneled on the little pond ; 

A telltale patter drips from off the trees; 

The air is touched with southland spiceries, 

As if but yesterday it tossed the frond 

Of pendent mosses where the live-oaks grow 

Beyond Virginia and the Carolines, 

Or had its will among the fruits and vines 

Of aromatic isles asleep beyond 

Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. 

Ill 

Soon shall the Cape Ann children shout in glee. 

Spying the arbutus, spring's dear recluse; 

Hill lads at dawn shall hearken the wild goose 

Go honking northward over Tennessee ; 

West from Oswego to Sault Sainte-Marie, 

And on to where the Pictured Rocks are hung, 

And yonder where, gigantic, willful, young, 

Chicago sitteth at the northwest gates. 

With restless violent hands and casual tongue 

Moulding her mighty fates. 

The Lakes shall robe them in ethereal sheen ; 



14 AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION 

And like a larger sea, the vital green 
Of springing wheat shall vastly be outflung 
Over Dakota and the prairie states. 
By desert people immemorial 
On Arizonan mesas shall be done 
Dim rites unto the thunder and the sun ; 
Nor shall the primal gods lack sacrifice 
More splendid, when the white Sierras call 
Unto the Rockies straightway to arise 
And dance before the unveiled ark of the year, 
Sounding their windy cedars as for shawms, 
Unrolling rivers clear 
For flutter of broad phylacteries ; 
While Shasta signals to Alaskan seas 
That watch old sluggish glaciers downward creep 
To fling their icebergs thundering from the steep, 
And Mariposa through the purple calms 
Gazes at far Hawaii crowned with palms 
Where East and West are met, — 
A rich seal on the ocean's bosom set 
To say that East and West are twain. 
With different loss and gain : 
The Lord hath sundered them ; let them be sun- 
dered yet. 

IV 

Alas ! what sounds are these that come 
Sullenly over the Pacific seas, — 



AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION 15 

Sounds of ignoble battle, striking dumb 

The season's half-awakened ecstasies ? 

Must I be humble, then, 

Now when my heart hath need of pride ? 

Wild love falls on me from these sculptured men •, 

By loving much the land for which they died 

I would be justified. 

My spirit was away on pinions wide 

To soothe in praise of her its passionate mood 

And ease it of its ache of gratitude. 

Too sorely heavy is the debt they lay 

On me and the companions of my day. 

I would remember now 

My country's goodliness, make sweet her name. 

Alas ! what shade art thou 

Of sorrow or of blame 

Liftest the lyric leafage from her brow, 

And pointest a slow finger at her shame ? 



Lies ! lies ! It cannot be ! The wars we wage 

Are noble, and our battles still are won 

By justice for us, ere we lift the gage. 

We have not sold our loftiest heritage. 

The proud republic hath not stooped to cheat 

And scramble in the market-place of war ; 

Her forehead weareth yet its solemn star. 



1 6 AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION 

Here is her witness : this, her perfect son, 
This delicate and proud New England soul 
Who leads despised men, with just-unshackled 

feet. 
Up the large ways where death and glory meet. 
To show all peoples that our shame is done, 
That once more we are clean and spirit-whole. 

VI 

Crouched in the sea fog on the moaning sand 

All night he lay, speaking some simple word 

From hour to hour to the slow minds that heard, 

Holding each poor life gently in his hand 

And breathing on the base rejected clay 

Till each dark face shone mystical and grand 

Against the breaking day ; 

And lo, the shard the potter cast away 

Was grown a fiery chalice crystal-fine 

Fulfilled of the divine 

Great wine of battle wrath by God's ring-finger 

stirred. 
Then upward, where the shadowy bastion loomed 
Huge on the mountain in the wet sea light. 
Whence now, and now, infernal flowerage bloomed, 
Bloomed, burst, and scattered down its deadly 

seed, — 
They swept, and died like freemen on the height, 



AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION ly 

Like freemen, and like men of noble breed ; 

And when the battle fell away at night 

By hasty and contemptuous hands were thrust 

Obscurely in a common grave with him 

The fair-haired keeper of their love and trust. 

Now limb doth mingle with dissolved limb 

In nature's busy old democracy 

To flush the mountain laurel when she blows 

Sweet by the southern sea, 

And heart with crumbled heart climbs in the 

rose : — 
The untaught hearts with the high heart that knew 
This mountain fortress for no earthly hold 
Of temporal quarrel, but the bastion old 
Of spiritual wrong. 

Built by an unjust nation sheer and strong, 
Expugnable but by a nation's rue 
And bowing down before that equal shrine 
By all men held divine. 
Whereof his band and he were the most holy sign. 

VII 

O bitter, bitter shade ! 

Wilt thou not put the scorn 

And instant tragic question from thine eyes? 

Do thy dark brows yet crave 

That swift and angry stave — 



1 8 AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION 

Unmeet for this desirous morn — 
That I have striven, striven to evade ? 
Gazing on him, must I not deem they err 
Whose careless lips in street and shop aver 
As common tidings, deeds to make his cheek 
Flush from the bronze, and his dead throat to 

speak ? 
Surely some elder singer would arise, 
Whose harp hath leave to threaten and to mourn 
Above this people when they go astray. 
Is Whitman, the strong spirit, overworn ? 
Has Whittier put his yearning wrath away ? 
I will not and I dare not yet believe ! 
Though furtively the sunlight seems to grieve, 
And the spring-laden breeze 
Out of the gladdening west is sinister 
With sounds of nameless battle overseas; 
Though when we turn and question in suspense 
If these things be indeed after these ways. 
And what things are to follow after these, 
Our fluent men of place and consequence 
Fumble and fill their mouths with hollow phrase, 
Or for the end-all of deep arguments 
Intone their dull commercial liturgies — 
I dare not yet believe ! My ears are shut ! 
I will not hear the thin satiric praise 
And muffled laughter of our enemies, 



AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION 19 

Bidding us never sheathe our valiant sword 
Till we have changed our birthright for a gourd 
Of wild pulse stolen from a barbarian's hut; 
Showing how wise it is to cast away 
The symbols of our spiritual sway. 
That so our hands with better ease 
May wield the driver's whip and grasp the jailer's 
keys. 

VIII 

Was it for this our fathers kept the law ? 

This crown shall crown their struggle and their 

ruth ? 
Are we the eagle nation Milton saw 
Mewing its mighty youth, 
Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth, 
And be a swift familiar of the sun 
Where aye before God's face his trumpets run ? 
Or have we but the talons and the maw. 
And for the abject likeness of our heart 
Shall some less lordly bird be set apart ? — 
Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are 

fat? 
Some gorger in the sun ? Some prowler with the 

bat? 

IX 

Ah no! 

We have not fallen so. 



/ 



to AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION 

We are our fathers' sons: let those who lead us 
know! 

*T was only yesterday sick Cuba's cry 

Came up the tropic wind, " Now help us, for we 
die ! " 

Then Alabama heard, 

And rising, pale, to Maine and Idaho 

Shouted a burning word. 

Proud state with proud impassioned state con- 
ferred. 

And at the lifting of a hand sprang forth. 

East, west, and south, and north. 

Beautiful armies. Oh, by the sweet blood and 
young 

Shed on the awful hill slope at San Juan, 

By the unforgotten names of eager boys 

Who might have tasted girls' love and been 
stung 

With the old mystic joys 

And starry griefs, now the spring nights come on^ 

But that the heart of youth is generous, — 

~JVe charge you, ye who lead us. 

Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain ! 

Turn not their new-world victories to gain ! 

One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays 

Of their dear praise. 

One jot of their pure conquest put to hire. 

The implacable republic will require; 



AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION 21 

With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon, 
Or subtly, coming as a thief at nighty 
But surely, very surely, slow or soon 
That insult deep we deeply will requite. 
Tempt not our weakness, our cupidity ! 
For save we let the island men go free^ 
Those baffled and dislaureled ghosts 
Will curse us from the lamentable coasts 
Where walk the frustrate dead. 
The cup of trembling shall be drained quite, 
Eaten the sour bread of astonishment,, 
With ashes of the hearth shall be made white 
Our hair, and wailing shall be in the tent; 
Then on your guiltier head 
Shall our intolerable self-disdain 
Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain; 
For manifest in that disastrous light 
We shall discern the right 
And do it, tardily. — O ye who lead^ 
Take heed! 

Blindness we may forgive, but baseness we witt 
smite. 

1900. 



THE QUARRY 

Between the rice swamps and the fields of tea 
I met a sacred elephant, snow-white. 
Upon his back a huge pagoda towered 
Full of brass gods and food of sacrifice. 
Upon his forehead sat a golden throne, 
The massy metal twisted into shapes 
Grotesque, antediluvian, such as move 
In myth or have their broken images 
Sealed in the stony middle of the hills. 
A peacock spread his thousand dyes to screen 
The yellow sunlight from the head of one 
Who sat upon the throne, clad stiff with gems, 
Heirlooms of dynasties of buried kings, — 
Himself the likeness of a buried king, 
With frozen gesture and unfocused eyes. 
The trappings of the beast were over-scrawled 
With broideries — sea-shapes and flying things. 
Fan-trees and dwarfed nodosities of pine. 
Mixed with old alphabets, and faded lore 
Fallen from ecstatic mouths before the Flood, 
Or gathered by the daughters when they walked 
Eastward in Eden with the Sons of God 
Whom love and the deep moon made garrulous. 



THE QUARRY 23 

Between the carven tusks his trunk hung dead ; 

Blind as the eyes of pearl in Buddha's brow 

His beaded eyes stared thwart upon the road j 

And feebler than the doting knees of eid, 

His joints, of size to swing the builder's crane 

Across the war-walls of the Anakim, 

Made vain and shaken haste. Good need was 

his 
To hasten : panting, foaming, on the slot 
Came many brutes of prey, their several hates 
Laid by until the sharing of the spoil. 
Just as they gathered stomach for the leap. 
The sun was darkened, and wide-balanced wings 
Beat downward on the trade-wind from the sea. 
A wheel of shadow sped along the fields 
And o'er the dreaming cities. Suddenly 
My heart misgave me, and I cried aloud, 
»* Alas ! What dost thou here ? What dost thou 

here ? " 
The great beasts and the little halted sharp. 
Eyed the grand circler, doubting his intent. 
Straightway the wind flawed and he came about, 
Stooping to take the vanward of the pack; 
Then turned, between the chasers and the chased, 
Crying a word I could not understand, — 
But stiller-tongued, with eyes somewhat askance. 
They settled to the slot and disappeared. 
1900. 



ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE 
PHILIPPINES 

Streets of the roaring town, 

Hush for him, hush, be still ! 

He comes, who was stricken down 

Doing the word of our will. 

Hush ! Let him have his state. 

Give him his soldier's crown. 

The grists of trade can wait 

Their grinding at the mill, 
But he cannot wait for his honor, now the trum- 
pet has been blown. 
Wreathe pride now for his granite brow, lay love 
on his breast of stone. 

Toll ! Let the great bells toll 
Till the clashing air is dim. 
Did we wrong this parted soul ? 
We will make it up to him. 
Toll ! Let him never guess 
What work we set him to. 
Laurel, laurel, yes ; 
He did what we bade him do. 



SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES 25 

Praise, and never a whispered hint but the fight 

he fought was good ; 
Never a word that the blood on his sword was 

his country's own heart's-blood. 

A flag for the soldier's bier 
Who dies that his land may live ; 
O, banners, banners here, 
That he doubt not nor misgive ! 
That he heed not from the tomb 
The evil days draw near 
When the nation, robed in gloom. 
With its faithless past shall strive. 

Let him never dream that his bullet's scream 
went wide of its island mark. 

Home to the heart of his darling land where she 
stumbled and sinned in the dark. 



UNTIL THE TROUBLING OF THE 
WATERS 

Two hours, two hours : God give me strength 

for it ! 
He who has given so much strength to me 
And nothing to my child, must give to-day 
What more I need to try and save my child 
And get for him the life I owe to him. 
To think that I may get it for him now, 
Before he knows how much he might have 

missed 
That other boys have got ! The bitterest thought 
Of all that plagued me when he ..-ame was this. 
How some day he would see the difference. 
And drag himself to me with puzzled eyes 
To ask me why it was. He would have been 
Cruel enough to do it, knowing not 
That was the question my rebellious heart 
Cried over and over one whole year to God, 
And got no answer and no help at all. 
If he had asked me, what could I have said ? 
What single word could I have found to say 
To hide me from his searching, puzzled gaze ? 



TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 27 

Some coward thing at best, never the truth ; 
The truth I never could have told him. No, 
I never could have said, " God gave you me 
To fashion you a body, right and strong. 
With sturdy little limbs and chest and neck 
For fun and fighting with your little mates. 
Great feats and voyages in the breathless world 
Of out-of-doors, — He gave you me for this. 
And I was such a bungler, that is all ! " 
O, the old lie — that thought was not the worst. 
I never have been truthful with myself. 
For by the door where lurked one ghostly thought 
I stood with crazy hands to thrust it back 
If it should dare to peep and whisper out 
Unbearable things about me, hearing which 
The women passing in the streets would turn 
To pity me and scold me with their eyes, 
Who was so bad a mother and so slow 
To learn to help God do his wonder in her 
That she — O my sweet baby ! It was not 
The fear that you would see the difference 
Between you and the other boys and girls; 
No, no, it was the dimmer, wilder fear. 
That you might never see it, never look 
Out of your tiny baby-house of mind. 
But sit your life through, quiet in the dark, 
Smiling and nodding at what was not there ! 



2 8 TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 

A foolish fear : God could not punish so. 
Yet until yesterday I thought He would. 
My soul was always cowering at the blow 
I saw suspended, ready to be dealt 
The moment that I showed my fear too much. 
Therefore I hid it from Him all I could, 
And only stole a shaking glance at it 
Sometimes in the dead minutes before dawn 
When He forgets to watch. Till yesterday. 
For yesterday was wonderful and strange 
From the beginning. When I wakened first 
And looked out at the window, the last snow 
Was gone from earth ; about the apple-trees 
Hung a faint mist of bloom ; small sudden green 
Had run and spread and rippled everywhere 
Over the fields ; and in the level sun 
Walked something like a presence and a power, 
Uttering hopes and loving-kindnesses 
To all the world, but chiefly unto me. 
It walked before me when I went to work, 
And all day long the noises of the mill 
Were spun upon a core of golden sound. 
Half-spoken words and interrupted songs 
Of blessed promise, meant for all the world. 
But most for me, because I suffered most. 
The shooting spindles, the smooth-humming 
wheels. 



TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 29 

The rocking webs, seemed toiling to some end 

Beneficent and human known to them, 

And duly brought to pass in power and love. 

The faces of the girls and men at work 

Met mine with intense greeting, veiled at once, 

As if they knew a secret they must keep 

For fear the joy would harm me if they told 

Before some inkling filtered to my mind 

In roundabout ways. When the day's work was 

done 
There lay a special silence on the fields ; 
And, as I passed, the bushes and the trees, 
The very ruts and puddles of the road 
Spoke to each other, saying it was she, 
The happy woman, the elected one, 
The vessel of strange mercy and the sign 
Of many loving wonders done in Heaven 
To help the piteous earth. 

At last I stopped 
And looked about me in sheer wonderment. 
What did it mean ? What did they want with 

me? 
What was the matter with the evening now 
That it was just as bound to make me glad 
As morning and the live-long day had been ? 
Me, who had quite forgot what gladness was, 



30 TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 

Who had no right to anything but toil, 

And food and sleep for strength to toil again, 

And that fierce frightened anguish of my love 

For the poor little spirit I had wronged 

With life that was no life. What had befallen 

Since yesterday ? No need to stop and ask ! 

Back there in the dark places of my mind 

Where I had thrust it, fearing to believe 

An unbelievable mercy, shone the news 

Told by the village neighbors coming home 

Last night from the great city, of a man 

Arisen, like the first evangelists. 

With power to heal the bodies of the sick, 

In testimony of his master Christ, 

Who heals the soul when it is sick with sin. 

Could such a thing be true in these hard days ? 

Was help still sent in such a way as that ? 

No, no ! I did not dare to think of it. 

Feeling what weakness and despair would come 

After the crazy hope broke under me. 

I turned and started homeward, faster now, 

But never fast enough to leave behind 

The voices and the troubled happiness 

That still kept mounting, mounting like a sea, 

And singing far-off like a rush of wings. 

Far down the road a yellow spot of light 

Shone from my cottage window, rayless yet, 



TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 31 

Where the last sunset crimson caught the panes. 
Alice had lit the lamp before she went; 
Her day of pity and unmirthful play 
Was over, and her young heart free to live 
Until to-morrow brought her nursing-task 
Again, and made her feel how dark and still 
That life could be to others which to her 
Was full of dreams that beckoned, reaching hands, 
And thrilling invitations young girls hear. 
My boy was sleeping, little mind and frame 
More tired just lying there awake two hours 
Than with a whole day's romp he should have 

been. 
He would not know his mother had come home { 
But after supper I would sit awhile 
Beside his bed, and let my heart have time 
For that worst love that stabs and breaks and kills, 
This I thought over to myself by rote 
And habit, but I could not feel my thoughts ; 
For still that dim unmeaning happiness 
Kept mounting, mounting round me like a sea, 
And singing inward like a wind of wings. 

Before I lifted up the latch, I knew. 
I felt no fear; the One who waited there 
In the low lamplight by the bed, had come 
Because I was his sister and in need. 



32 TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 

My word had got to Him somehow at last, 
And He had come to help me or to tell 
Where help was to be found. It was not strange. 
Strange only He had stayed away so long ; 
But that should be forgotten — He was here. 
I pushed the door wide open and looked in. 
He had been kneeling by the bed, and now. 
Half-risen, kissed my boy upon the lips. 
Then turned and smiled and pointed with his 

hand. 
I must have fallen on the threshold stone, 
For I remember that I felt, not saw, 
The resurrection glory and the peace 
Shed from his face and raiment as He went 
Out by the door into the evening street. 
But when I looked, the place about the bed 
Was yet all bathed in light, and in the midst 
My boy lay changed, — no longer clothed upon 
With scraps and shreds of life, but like the child 
Of some most fortunate mother. In a breath 
The image faded. There he lay again 
The same as always ; and the light was gone. 
I sank with moans and cries beside the bed. 
The cruelty, O Christ, the cruelty ! 
To come at last and then to go like that. 
Leaving the darkness deeper than before ! 



TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 33 

Then, though I heard no sound, I grew aware 
Of some one standing by the open door 
Among the dry vines rustling in the porch. 
My heart laughed suddenly. He had come back ! 
He had come back to make the vision true. 
He had not meant to mock me: God was God, 
And Christ was Christ ; there was no falsehood 

there. 
I heard a quiet footstep cross the room 
And felt a hand laid gently on my hair, — 
A human hand, worn hard by daily toil, 
Heavy with life-long struggle after bread. 
Alice's father. The kind homely voice 
Had in it such strange music that I dreamed 
Perhaps it was the Other speaking in him. 
Because His own bright form had made me swoon 
With its too much of glory. What he brought 
Was news as good as ever heavenly lips 
Had the dear right to utter. He had been 
All day among the crowds of curious folk 
From the great city and the country-side 
Gathered to watch the Healer do his work 
Of mercy on the sick and halt and blind. 
And with his very eyes had seen such things 
As awestruck men had witnessed long ago 
In Galilee, and writ of in the Book. 
To-morrow morning he would take me there 



34 TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 

If I had strength and courage to believe. 
It might be there was hope; he could not say, 
But knew what he had seen. When he was gone 
I lay for hours, letting the solemn waves 
Thundering joy go over and over me. 

Just before midnight baby fretted, woke ; 
He never yet has slept a whole night through 
Without his food and petting. As I sat 
Feeding and petting him and singing soft, 
I felt a jealousy begin to ache 
And worry at my heartstrings, hushing down 
The gladness. Jealousy of what or whom ? 
I hardly knew, or could not put in words; 
At least it seemed too foolish and too wrong 
When said, and so I shut the thought away. 
Only, next minute, it came stealing back. 
After the change, would my boy be the same 
As this one ? Would he be my boy at all. 
And not another's — his who gave the life 
I could not give, or did not anyhow ? 
How could I look in his new eyes to claim 
The whole of him, the body and the breath. 
When some one not his mother, a strange man, 
Had clothed him in that beauty of the flesh — 
Perhaps (for who could know ?), perhaps, by some 
Hateful disfiguring miracle, had even 



TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 35 

Transformed his spirit to a better one. 
Better, but not the same I prayed for him 
Down out of Heaven through the sleepless 

nights, — 
The best that God would send to such as me. 
I tried to strangle back the wicked pain ; 
Fancied him changed and tried to love him so. 
No use ; it was another, not my child, 
Not my frail, broken, priceless little one. 
My cup of anguish, and my trembling star 
Hung small and sad and sweet above the earth, 
So sure to fall but for my cherishing ! 

"When he had dropped asleep again, I rose 

And wrestled with the sinful selfishness. 

The dark injustice, the unnatural pain. 

Fevered at last with pacing to and fro, 

I raised the bedroom window and leaned out. 

The white moon, low behind the sycamores. 

Silvered the silent country ; not a- voice 

Of all the myriads summer moves to sing 

Had yet awakened ; in the level moon 

Walked that same presence I had heard at dawn 

Uttering hopes and loving-kindnesses. 

But now, dispirited and reticent. 

It walked the moonlight like a homeless thing. 

O, how to cleanse me of the cowardice ! 



36 TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 

How to be just ! Was I a mother, then, 

A mother, and not love her child as well 

As her own covetous and morbid love ? 

Was it for this the Comforter had come. 

Smiling at me and pointing with His hand ? 

— What had He meant to have me think or do. 

Smiling and pointing ? 

All at once I saw 
A way to save my darling from myself 
And make atonement for my grudging love ! 
Under the sycamores and up the hill 
And down across the river, the wet road 
Went stretching cityward, silvered in the moon. 
I who had shrunk from sacrifice, even I, 
Who had refused God's blessing for my boy. 
Would take him in my arms and carry him 
Up to the altar of the miracle. 
I would not wait for daylight, nor the help 
Of any human friendship ; I alone. 
Through the still miles of country, I alone. 
Only my arms to shield him and my feet 
To bear him: he should have no one to thank 
But me for that. I knew the way was long. 
But knew strength would be given. So I came. 
Soon the stars failed ; the late moon faded too : 
I think my heart had sucked their beams from 
them 



TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 37 

To build more blue amid the murky night 

Its own miraculous day. From creeks and fields 

The fog climbed slowly, blotted out the roadj 

And hid the signposts telling of the town ; 

After a while rain fell, with sleet and snow. 

What did I care ? Baby was snug and dry. 

Some day, when I was telling him of this. 

He would but hug me closer, hearing how 

The night conspired against us. Better hard 

Than easy, then : I almost felt regret 

My body was so capable and strong 

To do its errand. Honeyed drop by drop. 

The ghostly jealousy, loosening at my breast, 

Distilled into a dew of quiet tears 

And fell with splash of music in the wells 

And on the hidden rivers of my soul. 

The hardest part was coming through the town. 
The country, even when it hindered most. 
Seemed conscious of the thing I went to find. 
The rocks and bushes looming through the mist 
Questioned and acquiesced and understood; 
The trees and streams believed ; the wind and 

rain. 
Even they, for all their temper, had some words 
Of faith and comfort. But the glaring streets, 
The dizzy traffic, the piled merchandise. 



38 TROUBLING OF THE WATERS 

The giant buildings swarming with fierce life — 
Cared nothing for me. They had never heard 
Of me nor of my business. When I asked 
My way, a shade of pity or contempt 
Showed through men's kindness — for they all 

were kind. 
Daunted and chilled and very sick at heart, 
I walked the endless pavements. But at last 
The streets grew quieter ; the houses seemed 
As if they might be homes where people lived ; 
Then came the factories and cottages, 
And all was well again. Much more than well. 
For many sick and broken went my way, 
Alone or helped along by loving hands; 
And from a thousand eyes the famished hope 
Looked out at mine — wild, patient, querulous. 
But always hope and hope, a thousand tongues 
Speaking one word in many languages. 

In two hours He will come, they say, will stand 
There on the steps, above the waiting crowd, 
Knd touch with healing hands whoever asks 
Believingly, in spirit and in truth. 
Can such a mercy be, in these hard days ? 
Is help still sent in such a way as that? 
Christ, I believe ; pity my unbelief! 



JETSAM 

I WONDER can this be the world it was 

At sunset ? I remember the sky fell 

Green as pale meadows, at the long street-ends. 

But overhead the smoke-wrack hugged the roofs 

As if to shut the city from God's eyes 

Till dawn should quench the laughter and the 

lights. 
Beneath the gas flare stolid faces passed. 
Too dull for sin ; old loosened lips set hard 
To drain the stale lees from the cup of sense ; 
Or if a young face yearned from out the mist 
Made by its own bright hair, the eyes were wan 
With desolate fore-knowledge of the end. 
My life lay waste about me : as I walked, 
From the gross dark of unfrequented streets 
The face of my own youth peered forth at me, 
Struck white with pity at the thing I was ; 
And globed in ghostly fire, thrice-virginal. 
With lifted face star-strong, went one who sang 
Lost verses from my youth's gold canticle. 
Out of the void dark came my face and hers 
One vivid moment — then the street was there ; 



40 JETSAM 

Bloat shapes and mean «yes blotted the sear dusk ; 
And in the curtained window of a house 
Whence sin reeked on the night, a shameful head 
Was silhouetted black as Satan's face 
Against eternal fires. I stumbled on 
Down the dark slope that reaches riverward. 
Stretching blind hands to find the throat of God 
And crush Him in his lies. The river lay 
Coiled in its factory filth and few lean trees. 
All was too hateful — I could not die there! 
I whom the Spring had strained unto her breast, 
Whose lips had felt the wet vague lips of dawn. 
So under the thin willows' leprous shade 
And through the tangled ranks of riverweed 
I pushed — till lo, God heard me ! I came forth 
Where, 'neath the shoreless hush of region light. 
Through a new world, undreamed of, undesired, 
Beyond imagining of man's weary heart. 
Far to the white marge of the wondering sea 
This still plain widens, and this moon rains down 
Insufferable ecstasy of peace. 

My heart is man's heart, strong to bear this night's 

Unspeakable affliction of mute love 

That crazes lesser things. The rocks and clods 

Dissemble, feign a busy intercourse ; 

The bushes deal in shadowy subterfuge, 



JETSAM 41 

Lurk dull, dart spiteful out, make heartless signs. 
Utter awestricken purpose of no sense, — 
But I walk quiet, crush aside the hands 
Stretched furtively to drag me madmen's ways. 
I know the thing they suffer, and the tricks 
They must be at to help themselves endure. 
I would not be too boastful ; I am weak, 
Too weak to put aside the utter ache 
Of this lone splendor long enough to see 
Whether the moon is still her white strange self 
Or something whiter, stranger, even the face 
Which by the changed face of my risen youth 
Sang, globed in fire, her golden canticle. 
I dare not look again ; another gaze 
Might drive me to the wavering coppice there. 
Where bat-winged madness brushed me, the wild 

laugh 
Of naked nature crashed across my blood. 
So rank it was with earthy presences. 
Faun-shapes in goatish dance, young witches' eyes 
Slanting deep invitation, whinnying calls 
Ambiguous, shocks and whirlwinds of wild 

mirth, — 
They had undone me in the darkness there. 
But that within me, smiting through my lids 
Lowered to shut in the thick whirl of sense. 
The dumb light ached and rummaged, and with 

out, 



42 JETSAM 

The soaring splendor summoned me aloud 
To leave the low dank thickets of the flesh 
Where man meets beast and makes his lair with 

him, 
For spirit reaches of the strenuous vast, 
Where stalwart stars reap grain to make the bread 
God breaketh at his tables and is glad. 
I came out in the moonlight cleansed and strong. 
And gazed up at the lyric face to see 
All sweetness tasted of in earthen cups 
Ere it be dashed and spilled, all radiance flung 
Beyond experience, every benison dream. 
Treasured and mystically crescent there. 

O, who will shield me from her ? Who wilJ 

place 
A veil between me and the fierce in-throng 
Of her inexorable benedicite ? 
See, I have loved her well and been with her ! 
Through tragic twilights when the stricken sea 
Groveled with fear ; or when she made hef 

throne 
In imminent cities built of gorgeous winds 
And paved with lightnings ; or when the sobering 

stars 
Would lead her home 'mid wealth of plundered 

May 



JETSAM 43 

Along the violet slopes of evensong. 

Of all the sights that starred the dreamy year. 

For me one sight stood peerless and apart : 

Bright rivers tacit ; low hills prone and dumb ; 

Forests that hushed their tiniest voice to hear ; 

Skies for the unutterable advent robed 

In purple like the opening iris buds ; 

And by some lone expectant pool, one tree 

Whose gray boughs shivered with excess of 

awe, — 
As with preluding gush of amber light, 
And herald trumpets softly lifted through. 
Across the palpitant horizon marge 
Crocus-filleted came the singing moon. 
Out of her changing lights I wove my youth 
A place to dwell in, sweet and spiritual, 
And all the bitter years of my exile 
My heart has called afar ofF unto her. 
Lo, after many days love finds its own ! 
The futile adorations, the waste tears. 
The hymns that fluttered low in the false dawn, 
She has uptreasured as a lover's gifts ; 
They are the mystic garment that she wears 
Against the bridal, and the crocus flowers 
She twined her brow with at the going forth; 
They are the burden of the song she made 
In coming through the quiet fields of space. 



44 JETSAM 

And breathe between her passion-parted lips 
Calling me out along the flowering road 
Which summers through the dimness of the sea. 

Hark, where the deep feels round its thousand 

shores 
To find remembered respite, and far drawn 
Through weed-strewn shelves and crannies of the 

coast 
The myriad silence yearns to myriad speech. 

sea that yearns a day, shall thy tongues be 
So eloquent, and heart, shall all thy tongues 
Be dumb to speak thy longing ? Say I hold 
Life as a broken jewel in my hand. 

And fain would buy a little love with it 

For comfort, say I fain would make it shine 

Once in remembering eyes ere it be dust, — 

Were life not worthy spent ? Then what of this, 

When all my spirit hungers to repay 

The beauty that has drenched my soul with 

peace ? 
Once at a simple turning of the way 

1 met God walking ; and although the dawn 
Was large behind Him, and the morning stars 
Circled and sang about his face as birds 
About the fieldward morning cottager, 

My coward heart said faintly, " Let us haste ! 



JETSAM 45 

Day grows and it is far to market-town." 
Once where I lay in darkness after fight, 
Sore smitten, thrilled a little thread of song 
Searching and searching at my muffled sense 
Until it shook sweet pangs through all my blood, 
And I beheld one globed in ghostly fire 
Singing, star-strong, her golden canticle ; 
And her mouth sang, " The hosts of Hate roll 

past, 
A dance of dust motes in the sliding sun; 
Love's battle comes on the wide wings of storm. 
From east to west one legion ! Wilt thou strive ? " 
Then, since the splendor of her sword-bright gaze 
Was heavy on me with yearning and with scorn 
My sick heart muttered, " Yea, the little strife. 
Yet see, the grievous wounds ! I fain would 

sleep." 
O heart, shalt thou not once be strong to go 
Where all sweet throats are calling, once be brave 
To slake with deed thy dumbness ? Let us go 
The path her singing face looms low to point, 
Pendulous, blanched with longing, shedding flame 
Of silver on the brown grope of the flood ; 
For all my spirit's soilure is put by 
And all my body's soilure, lacking now 
But the last lustral sacrament of death 
To make me clean for those near-searching eyes 



46 JETSAM 

That question yonder whether all be well, 
And pause a little ere they dare rejoice. 

Question and be thou answered, passionate face \ 
For I am worthy, worthy now at last 
After so long unworth ; strong now at last 
To give myself to beauty and be saved ; 
Now, being man, to give myself to thee, 
As once the tumult of my boyish heart 
Companioned thee with rapture through the world. 
Forth from a land whereof no poet's lip 
Made mention how the leas were lily-sprent. 
Into a land God's eyes had looked not on 
To love the tender bloom upon the hills. 
To-morrow, when the fishers come at dawn 
Upon that shell of me the sea has tossed 
To land, as fit for earth to use again. 
Men, meeting at the shops and corner streets, 
Will speak a word of pity, glossing o'er 
With altered accent, dubious sweep of hand. 
Their virile, just contempt for one who failed. 
But they can never cast my earnings up. 
Who know so well my losses. Even you 
Who in the mild light of the spirit walk 
And hold yourselves acquainted with the truth, 
Be not too swift to judge and cast me out ! 
You shall find other, nobler ways than mine 



JETSAM 47 

To work your soul's redemption, — glorious noons 

Of battle 'neath the heaven-suspended sign. 

And nightly refuge 'neath God's aegis-rim; 

Increase of wisdom, and acquaintance held 

With the heart's austerities ; still governance. 

And ripening of the blood in the weekday sun 

To make the full-orbed consecrated fruit 

At life's end for the Sabbath supper meet. 

I shall not sit beside you at that feast. 

For ere a seedling of my golden tree 

Pushed off its petals to get room to grow, 

I stripped the boughs to make an April gaud 

And wreathe a spendthrift garland for my hair. 

But mine is not the failure God deplores; 

P'or I of old am beauty's votarist. 

Long recreant, often foiled and led astray, 

But resolute at last to seek her there 

Where most she does abide, and crave with tears 

That she assoil me of my blemishment. 

Low looms her singing face to point the way. 

Pendulous, blanched with longing, shedding flame 

Of silver on the brown grope of the flood. 

The stars are for me ; the horizon wakes 

Its pilgrim chanting ; and the little sand 

Grows musical of hope beneath my feet. 

The waves that leap to meet my swimming breast 

Gossip sweet secrets of the light-drenched way. 



48 JETSAM 

And when the deep throbs of the rising surge 
Pulse upward with me, and a rain of wings 
Blurs round the moon's pale place, she stoops to 

reach 
Still welcome of bright hands across the wave. 
And sings low, low, globed all in ghostly fire, 
Lost verses from my youth's gold canticle. 



THE BRUTE 

Through his might men work their wills. 

They have boweled out the hills 

For food to keep him toiling in the cages they 
have wrought ; 

And they fling him, hour by hour, 

Limbs of men to give him power ; 

Brains of men to give him cunning ; and for dain- 
ties to devour 

Children's souls, the little worth j hearts of 
women, cheaply bought : 

He takes them and he breaks them, but he gives 
them scanty thought. 

For about the noisy land, 

Roaring, quivering 'neath his hand, 

His thoughts brood fierce and sullen or laugh in 

lust of pride 
O'er the stubborn things that he. 
Breaks to dust and brings to be. 
Some he mightily establishes, some flings down 

utterly. 



50 THE BRUTE 

There is thunder in his stride, nothing ancient 

can abide, 
When he hales the hills together and bridles up 

the tide. 

Quietude and loveliness. 

Holy sights that heal and bless, 

They are scattered and abolished where his iron 

hoof is set ; 
When he splashes through the brae 
Silver streams are choked with clay, 
When he snorts the bright cliffs crumble and the 

woods go down like hay ; 
He lairs in pleasant cities, and the haggard people 

fret 
Squalid 'mid their new-got riches, soot-begrimed 

and desolate. 

They who caught and bound him tight 

Laughed exultant at his might. 

Saying, " Now behold, the good time comes for 
the weariest and the least ! 

We will use this lustv knave : 

No more need for men to slave ; 

We may rise and look about us and have know- 
ledge ere the grave." 



THE BRUTE 51 

But the Brute said in his breast, " Till the mills 

I grind have ceased, 
The riches shall be dust of dust, dry ashes be the 

feast ! 

" On the strong and cunning few 

Cynic favors I vv^ill strew; 

I will stuff their maw with overplus until their 

spirit dies; 
From the patient and the low 
I will take the joys they know ; 
They shall hunger after vanities and still an-hun- 

gered go. 
Madness shall be on the people, ghastly jealousies 

arise ; 
Brother's blood shall cry on brother up the dead 

and empty skies. 

"I will burn and dig and hack 

Till the heavens suffer lack; 

God shall feel a pleasure fail him, crying to his 

cherubim, 
* Who hath flung yon mud-ball there 
Where my world went green and fair ? ' 
I shall laugh and hug me, hearing how his senti- 
nels declare, 



52 THE BRUTE 

' *T is the Brute they chained to labor! He has 

made the bright earth dim. 
Store of wares and pelf a plenty, but they got no 

good of him.' " 

So he plotted in his rage : 
So he deals it, age by age. 
But even as he roared his curse a still small Voice 

befell ; 
Lo, a still and pleasant voice bade them none the 

less rejoice. 
For the Brute must bring the good time on ; he 

has no other choice. 
He may struggle, sweat, and yell, but he knows 

exceeding well 
He must work them out salvation ere they send 

him back to hell. 

All the desert that he made 

He must treble bless with shade. 

In primal wastes set precious seed of rapture and 

of pain ; 
All the strongholds that he built 
For the powers of greed and guilt — 
He must strew their bastions down the sea and 

choke their towers with silt j 



THE BRUTE 53 

He must make the temples clean for the gods to 

come again, 
And lift the lordly cities under skies without a 

stain. 

In a very cunning tether 

He must lead the tyrant weather; 

He must loose the curse of Adam from the worn 
neck of the race ; 

He must cast out hate and fear, 

Dry away each fruitless tear, 

And make the fruitful tears to gush from the deep 
heart and clear. 

He must give each man his portion, each his 
pride and worthy place ; 

He must batter down the arrogant and lift the 
weary face. 

On each vile mouth set purity, on each low fore- 
head grace. 

Then, perhaps, at the last day. 

They will whistle him away. 

Lay a hand upon his muzzle in the face of God, 

and say, 
" Honor, Lord, the Thing we tamed ! 
I,et him not be scourged or blamed. 



54 THE BRUTE 

Even through his wrath and fierceness was thy 
fierce wroth world reclaimed ! 

Honor Thou thy servants' servant ; let thy jus- 
tice now be shown." 

Then the Lord will heed their saying, and the 
Brute come to his own, 

'Twixt the Lion and the Eagle, by the armpost 
of the Throne. 



THE MENAGERIE 

Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut 
Such capers every day ! I 'm just about 
Mellow, but then — There goes the tent-flap 

shut. 
Rain 's in the wind. I thought so : every snout 
Was twitching when the keeper turned me out. 

That screaming parrot makes my blood run cold. 

Gabriel's trump ! the big bull elephant 

Squeals " Rain ! " to the parched herd. The 

monkeys scold, 
And jabber that it 's rain water they want. 
(It makes me sick to see a monkey pant.) 

I '11 foot it home, to try and make believe 
I 'm sober. After this I stick to beer, 
And drop the circus when the sane folks leave. 
A man 's a fool to look at things too near ; 
They look back, and begin to cut up queer. 

Beasts do, at any rate ; especially 

Wild devils caged. They have the coolest way 



56 THE MENAGERIE 

Of being something else than what you see : 

You pass a sleek young zebra nosing hay, 
A nylghau looking bored and distingue, — 

And think you 've seen a donkey and a bird. 
Not on your life ! Just glance back, if you 

dare. 
The zebra chews, the nylghau has n't stirred ; 
But something's happened, Heaven knows what 

or where. 
To freeze your scalp and pompadour your hair. 

I 'm not precisely an aeolian lute 
Hung in the wandering winds of sentiment, 
But drown me if the ugliest, meanest brute 
Grunting and fretting in that sultry tent 
Did n't just floor me with embarrassment ! 

*T was like a thunder-clap from out the clear, — 
One minute they were circus beasts, some grand, 
Some ugly, some amusing, and some queer : 
Rival attractions to the hobo band. 
The flying jenny, and the peanut stand. 

Next minute they were old hearth-mates of mine ! 
Lost people, eyeing me with such a stare! 
Patient, satiric, devilish, divine j 



THE MENAGERIE j7 

A gaze of hopeless envy, squalid care, 
Hatred, and thwarted love, and dim despair. 

Within my blood my ancient kindred spoke, — 
Grotesque and monstrous voices, heard afar 
Down ocean caves when behemoth awoke. 
Or through fern forests roared the plesiosaur 
Locked with the giant-bat in ghastly war. 

And suddenly, as in a flash of light, 

I saw great Nature working out her plan ; 

Through all her shapes from mastodon to mite 

Forever groping, testing, passing on 

To find at last the shape and soul of Man. 

Till in the fullness of accomplished time. 
Comes brother Forepaugh, upon business bent, 
Tracks her through frozen and through torrid 

clime. 
And shows us, neatly labeled in a tent. 
The stages of her huge experiment ; 

Blabbing aloud her shy and reticent hours; 
Dragging to light her blinking, slothful moods ; 
Publishing fretful seasons when her powers 
Worked wild and sullen in her solitudes. 
Or when her mordant laughter shook the woods. 



58 THE MENAGERIE 

Here, round about me, were her vagrant births; 
Sick dreams she had, fierce projects she essayed ; 
Her qualms, her fiery prides, her crazy mirths ; 
The troublings of her spirit as she strayed. 
Cringed, gloated, mocked, was lordly, was afraid. 

On that long road she went to seek mankind; 
Here were the darkling coverts that she beat 
To find the Hider she was sent to find ; 
Here the distracted footprints of her feet 
Whereby her soul's Desire she came to greet. 

But why should they, her botch-work, turn about 
And stare disdain at me, her finished job ? 
Why was the place one vast suspended shout 
Of laughter ? Why did all the daylight throb 
With soundless guffaw and dumb-stricken sob ? 

Helpless I stood among those awful cages ; 

The beasts were walking loose, and I was bagged ! 

I, I, last product of the toiling ages. 

Goal of heroic feet that never lagged, — 

A little man in trousers, slightly jagged. 

Deliver me from such another jury ! 
The Judgment-day will be a picnic to 't. 
Their satire was more dreadful than their fury, 



THE MENAGERIE 59 

And worst of all was just a kind of brute 
Disgust, and giving up, and sinking mute. 

Survival of the fittest, adaptation, 
And all their other evolution terms. 
Seem to omit one small consideration, 
To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms 
Have souls : there 's soul in everything that 
squirms. 

And souls are restless, plagued, impatient things. 
All dream and unaccountable desire ; 
Crawling, but pestered with the thought of wings; 
Spreading through every inch of earth's old mire 
Mystical hanker after something higher. 

Wishes are horses, as I understand. 

I guess a wistful polyp that has strokes 

Of feeling faint to gallivant on land 

Will come to be a scandal to his folks ; 

Legs he will sprout, in spite of threats and jokes. 

And at the core of every life that crawls 
Or runs or flies or swims or vegetates — 
Churning the mammoth's heart-blood, in the galls 
Of shark and tiger planting gorgeous hates. 
Lighting the love of eagles for their mates ; 



6o THE MENAGERIE 

Yes, in the dim brain of the jellied fish 

That is and is not living — moved and stirred 

From the beginning a mysterious vi^ish, 

A vision, a command, a fatal Word : 

The name of Man w^as uttered, and they heard. 

Upward along the aeons of old war 

They sought him : wing and shank-bone, claw 

and bill 
Were fashioned and rejected ; wide and far 
They roamed the twilight jungles of their will ; 
But still they sought him, and desired him still. 

Man they desired, but mind you. Perfect Man, 

The radiant and the loving, yet to be ! 

I hardly wonder, when they came to scan 

The upshot of their strenuosity. 

They gazed with mixed emotions upon me. 

Well, my advice to you is, Face the creatures. 
Or spot them sideways with your weather eye, 
Just to keep tab on their expansive features ; 
It is n't pleasant when you 're stepping high 
To catch a giraffe smiling on the sly. 

If nature made you graceful, don't get gay 
Back-to before the hippopotamus i 



THE MENAGERIE 6i 

If meek and godly, find some place to play 
Besides right where three mad hyenas fuss : 
You may hear language that we won't discuss. 

If you 're a sweet thing in a flower-bed hat, 
Or her best fellow with your tie tucked in, 
Don't squander love's bright springtime girding at 
An old chimpanzee with an Irish chin : 
There may be hidden meaning in his grin. 



THE GOLDEN JOURNEY 

All day he drowses by the sail 

With dreams of her, and all night long 

The broken waters are at song 

Of how she lingers, wild and pale, 

When all the temple lights are dumb. 

And weaves her spells to make him come. 

The wide sea traversed, he will stand 
With straining eyes, until the shoal 
Green water from the prow shall roll 
Upon the yellow strip of sand — 
Searching some fern-hid tangled way 
Into the forest old and grey. * 

Then he will leap upon the shore, 
And cast one look up at the sun. 
Over his loosened locks will run 
The dawn breeze, and a bird will pour 
Its rapture out to make life seem 
Too sweet to leave for such a dream. 



THE GOLDEN JOURNEY 63 

But all the swifter will he go 
Through the pale, scattered asphodels, 
Down mote-hung dusk of olive dells. 
To where the ancient basins throw 
Fleet threads of blue and trembling zones 
Of gold upon the temple stones. 

There noon keeps just a twilight trace ; 
Twixt love and hate, and death and birth, 
No man may choose ; nor sobs nor mirth 
May enter in that haunted place. 
All day the fountain sphynx lets drip 
Slow drops of silence from her lip. 

To hold the porch-rodf slender girls 
Of milk-white marble stand arow; 
Doubt never blurs a single brow. 
And never the noon's faintness curls 
From their expectant hush of pride 
The lips the god has glorified. 

But these things he will barely view. 
Or if he stay to heed them, still 
But as the lark the lights that spill 
From out the sun it soars unto. 
Where, past the splendors and the heats, 
The sun's heart's self forever beats. 



64 THE GOLDEN JOURNEY 

For wide the brazen doors will swing 
Soon as his sandals touch the pave; 
The anxious light inside will wave 
And tremble to a lunar ring 
About the form that lieth prone 
Before the dreadful altar-stone. 

She will not look or speak or stir, 

But with drowned lips and cheeks death-white 

Will lie amid the pool of light, 

Until, grown faint with thirst of her, 

He shall bow down his face and sink 

Breathless beneath the eddying brink. 

Then a swift music will begin. 
And as the brazen doors shut slow, 
There will be hurrying to and fro. 
And lights and calls and silver din. 
While through the star-freaked swirl of air 
The god's sweet cruel eyes will stare. 



HEART'S WILD-FLOWER 

To-night her lids shall lift again, slow, soft, with 

vague desire, 
And lay about my breast and brain their hush of 

spirit fire. 
And I shall take the sweet of pain as the laborer 

his hire. 

And though no word shall e'er be said to ease the 

ghostly sting. 
And though our hearts, unhoused, unfed, must 

still go wandering. 
My sign is set upon her head while stars do meet 

and sing. 

Not such a sign as women wear who make their 
foreheads tame 

With life's long tolerance, and bear love's sweet- 
est, humblest name. 

Nor such as passion eateth bare with its crown 
of tears and flame. 

Nor such a sign as happy friend sets on his 
friend's dear brow 



66 HEART'S WILD-FLOWER 

When meadow-pipings break and blend to a key 

of autumn woe. 
And the woodland says playtime 's at end, best 

unclasp hands and go. 

But where she strays, through blight or blooth, 
one fadeless flower she wears, 

A little gift God gave my youth, — whose petals 
dim were fears. 

Awes, adorations, songs of ruth, hesitancies, and 
tears. 

O heart of mine, with all thy powers of white 

beatitude. 
What are the dearest of God's dowers to the 

children of his blood ? 
How blow the shy, shy wilding flowers in the 

hollows of his wood ? 



HARMONICS 

This string upon my harp was best beloved : 
I thought I knew its secrets through and through ; 
Till an old man, whose young eyes lightened blue 
'Neath his white hair, bent over me and moved 
His fingers up and down, and broke the wire 
To such a laddered music, rung on rung, 
As from the patriarch's pillow skyward sprung 
Crowded with wide-flung wings and feet of fire. 

O vibrant heart ! so metely tuned and strung 
That any untaught hand can draw from thee 
One clear gold note that makes the tired years, 

young — 
What of the time when Love had whispered me 
Where slept thy nodes, and my hand pausefully 
Gave to the dim harmonics voice and tongue ? 



ON THE RIVER 

The faint stars wake and wonder, 
Fade and find heart anew ; 
Above us and far under 
Sphereth the watchful blue. 

Silent she sits, outbending, 
A wild pathetic grace, 
A beauty strange, heart-rending, 
Upon her hair and face. 

O spirit cries that sever 
The cricket's level drone ! 
O to give o'er endeavor 
And let love have its own ! 

Within the mirrored bushes 
There wakes a little stir j 
The white-throat moves, and hushes 
Her nestlings under her. 



ON THE RIVER . 69 

Beneath, the lustrous river. 

The watchful sky o'erhead. 

God, God, that Thou should'st ever 

Poison thy children's bread! 



THE BRACELET OF GRASS 

The opal heart of afternoon 
Was clouding on to throbs of storm, 
Ashen within the ardent west 
The lips of thunder muttered harm, 
And as a bubble like to break 
Hung heaven's trembling amethyst, 
When with the sedge-grass by the lake 
I braceleted her wrist. 

And when the ribbon grass was tied. 
Sad with the happiness we planned. 
Palm linked in palm we stood awhile 
And watched the raindrops dot the sand ; 
Until the anger of the breeze 
Chid all the lake's bright breathing down, 
And ravished all the radiancies 
From her deep eyes of brown. 

We gazed from shelter on the storm. 
And through our hearts swept ghostly pain 
To see the shards of day sweep past. 
Broken, and none might mend again. 



THE BRACELET OF GRASS 71 

Broken, that none shall ever mend ; 
Loosened, that none shall ever tie. 
O the wind and the vi^ind, will it never end? 
O the sweeping past of the ruined sky ! 



THE DEPARTURE 

I 

I SAT beside the glassy evening sea, 
One foot upon the thin horn of my lyre, 
And all its strings of laughter and desire 
Crushed in the rank wet grasses heedlessly ; 
Nor did my dull eyes care to question how 
The boat close by had spread its saffron sails, 
Nor what might mean the coffers and the bales, 
And streaks of new wine on the gilded prow. 
Neither was wonder in me when I saw 
Fair women step therein, though they were fair 
Even to adoration and to awe. 
And in the gracious fillets of their hair 
Were blossoms from a garden I had known. 
Sweet mornings ere the apple buds were blown. 

II 

One gazed steadfast into the dying west 
With lips apart to greet the evening star; 
And one with eyes that caught the strife and jar 
Of the sea's heart, followed the sunward breast 



THE DEPARTURE 73 

Of a lone gull ; from a slow harp one drew 

Blind music like a laugh or like a wail ; 

And in the uncertain shadow of the sail 

One wove a crown of berries and of yew. 

Yet even as I said with dull desire, 

" All these were mine, and one was mine indeed," 

The smoky music burst into a fire. 

And I was left alone in my great need. 

One foot upon the thin horn of my lyre 

And all its strings crushed in the dripping weed. 



FADED PICTURES 

Only two patient eyes to stare 

Out of the canvas. All the rest — 

The warm green gown, the small hands pressed 

Light in the lap, the braided hair 

That must have made the sweet low brow 
So earnest, centuries ago, 
When some one saw it change and glow — 
All faded ! Just the eyes burn now. 

I dare sav people pass and pass 
Before the blistered little frame. 
And dingv work without a name 
Stuck in behind its square of glass. 

But I, well, I left Raphael 
Just to come drink these eyes of hers. 
To think awav the stains and blurs 
And make all new again and well. 

Onlv, for tears mv head will bow. 
Because there on my heart's last wall. 
Scarce one tint left to tell it all, 
A picture keeps its eyes, somehow. 



A GREY DAY 

Grey drizzling mists the moorlands drape, 

Rain whitens the dead sea, 

From headland dim to sullen cape 

Grey sails creep wearily. 

I know not how that merchantman 

Has found the heart ; but 't is her plan 

Seaward her endless course to shape. 

Unreal as insects that appall 
A drunkard's peevish brain, 
O'er the grey deep the dories crawl, 
Four-legged, with rowers twain : 
Midgets and minims of the earth, 
Across old ocean's vasty girth 
Toiling — heroic, comical ! 

I wonder how that merchant's crew 

Have ever found the will ! 

I wonder what the fishers do 

To keep them toiling still ! 

I wonder how the heart of man 

Has patience to live out its span, 

Or wait until its dreams come true. 



THE RIDE BACK 

Before the coming of the dark^ he dreamed 
An old-world faded story : of a knight^ 
Much like in need to him^ who was no knight ! 
And of a road^ much like the road his soul 
Groped over^ desperate to meet Her soul. 
Beside the bed Death waited. And he dreamed. 

His limbs were heavy from the fight, 
His mail was dark with dust and blood ; 
On his good horse they bound him tight, 
And on his breast they bound the rood 
To help him in the ride that night. 

When he crashed through the wood's wet rim, 
About the dabbled reeds a breeze 
Went moaning broken words and dim ; 
The haggard shapes of twilight trees 
Caught with their scrawny hands at him. 

Between the doubtful aisles of day 
Strange folk and lamentable stood 



THE RIDE BACK 77 

To maze and beckon him astray, 

But through the grey wrath of the wood 

He held right on his bitter way. 

When he came where the trees were thin. 
The moon sat waiting there to see ; 
On her worn palm she laid her chin, 
And laughed awhile in sober glee 
To think how strong this knight had been. 

When he rode past the pallid lake. 
The withered yellow stems of flags 
Stood breast-high for his horse to break; 
Lewd as the palsied lips of hags 
The petals in the moon did shake. 

When he came by the mountain wall, 
The snow upon the heights looked down 
And said, " The sight is pitiful. 
The nostrils of his steed are brown 
With frozen blood ; and he will fall." 

The iron passes of the hills 
With question were importunate ; 
And, but the sharp-tongued icy rills 
Had grown for once compassionate. 
The spiteful shades had had their wills. 



78 THE RIDE BACK 

Just when the ache in breast and brain 
And the frost smiting at his face 
Had sealed his spirit up with pain, 
He came out in a better place, 
And morning lay across the plain. 

He saw the wet snails crawl and cling 
On fern-stalks where the rime had run. 
The careless birds went wing and wing, 
And in the low smile of the sun 
Life seemed almost a pleasant thing. 

Right on the panting charger swung 
Through the bright depths of quiet grass ; 
The knight's lips moved as if they sung, 
And through the peace there came to pass 
The flattery of lute and tongue. 

From the mid-flowering of the mead 
There swelled a sob of minstrelsy, 
Faint sackbuts and the dreamy reed. 
And plaintive lips of maids thereby. 
And songs blown out like thistle seed. 

Forth from her maidens came the bride, 
And as his loosened rein fell slack 



THE RIDE BACK 79 

He muttered, " In their throats they lied 
Who said that I should ne'er win back 
To kiss her lips before I died ! " 



SONG-FLOWER AND POPPY 
I 

IN NEW YORK 

He plays the deuce with my writing time, 
For the penny my sixth-floor neighbor throws ; 
He finds me proud of my pondered rhyme. 
And he leaves me — well, God knows 
It takes the shine from a tunester's line 
When a little mate of the deathless Nine 
Pipes up under your nose ! 

For listen, there is his voice again, 

Wistful and clear and piercing sweet. 

Where did the boy find such a strain 

To make a dead heart beat ? 

And how in the name of care can he bear 

To jet such a fountain into the air 

In this gray gulch of a street ? 

Tuscan slopes or the Piedmontese ? 
Umbria under the Apennine ? 



SONG-FLOWER AND POPPY 8i 

South, where the terraced lemon-trees 
Round rich Sorrento shine ? 

Venice moon on the smooth lagoon ? 

Where have I heard that aching tune, 
That boyish throat divine ? 

Beyond my roofs and chimney pots 
A rag of sunset crumbles gray ; 
Below, fierce radiance hangs in clots 
O'er the streams that never stay. 
Shrill and high, newsboys cry 
The worst of the city's infamy 
For one more sordid day. 

But my desire has taken sail 
For lands beyond, soft-horizoned : 
Down languorous leagues I hold the trail. 
From Marmalada, steeply throned 
Above high pastures washed with light. 
Where dolomite by dolomite 
Looms sheer and spectral-coned. 

To purple vineyards looking south 
On reaches of the still Tyrrhene; 
Virgilian headlands, and the mouth 
Of Tiber, where that ship put in 
To take the dead men home to God, 



82 SONG-FLOWER AND POPPY 

Whereof Casella told the mode 
To the great Florentine. 

Up stairways blue with flowering weed 

I climb to hill-hung Bergamo ; 

All day I watch the thunder breed 

Golden above the springs of Po, 

Till the voice makes sure its wavering lure, 

And by Assisi's portals pure 

I stand, with heart bent low. 

O hear, how it blooms in the blear dayfall, 

That flower of passionate wistful song ! 

How it blows like a rose by the iron wall 

Of the city loud and strong. 

How it cries " Nay, nay " to the worldling's way, 

To the heart's clear dream how it whispers, 

" Yea ; 
Time comes, though the time is long.'* 

Beyond my roofs and chimney piles 
Sunset crumbles, ragged, dire ; 
The roaring street is hung for miles 
With fierce electric fire. 
Shrill and high, newsboys cry 
The gross of the planet's destiny 
Through one more sullen gyre. 



SONG-FLOWER AND POPPY 83 

Stolidly the town flings down 
Its lust by day for its nightly lust ; 
Who does his given stint, 't is known. 
Shall have his mug and crust. — 
Too base of mood, too harsh of blood, 
Too stout to seize the grosser good. 
Too hungry after dust ! 

O hark ! how it blooms in the falling dark. 

That flower of mystical yearning song : 

Sad as a hermit thrush, as a lark 

Uplifted, glad, and strong. 

Heart, we have chosen the better part ! 

Save sacred love and sacred art 

Nothing is good for long. 



n 

AT ASSISI 

Before St. Francis' burg I wait, 
Frozen in spirit, faint with dread ; 
His presence stands within the gate, 
Mild splendor rings his head. 
Gently he seems to welcome me : 
Knows he not I am quick, and he 
Is dead, and priest of the dead ? 

I turn away from the gray church pile ; 

I dare not enter, thus undone : 

Here in the roadside grass awhile 

I will lie and watch for the sun. 

Too purged of earth's good glee and strife. 

Too drained of the honied lusts of life. 

Was the peace these old saints won ! 

And lo ! how the laughing earth says no 
To the fear that mastered me ; 
To the blood that aches and clamors so 
How it whispers " Verily." 



SONG-FLOWER AND POPPY 85 

Here by my side, marvelous-dyed, 

Bold stray-away from the courts of pride, 

A poppy-bell flaunts free. 

St. Francis sleeps upon his hill. 

And a poppy flower laughs down his creed ; 

Triumphant light her petals spill. 

His shrines are dim indeed. 

Men build and plan, but the soul of man. 

Coming with haughty eyes to scan. 

Feels richer, wilder need. 

How long, old builder Time, wilt bide 

Till at thy thrilling word 

Life's crimson pride shall have to bride 

The spirit's white accord. 

Within that gate of good estate 

Which thou must build us soon or late, 

Hoar workman of the Lord f 



HOW THE MEAD-SLAVE WAS SET 
FREE 

Nay, move not ! Sit just as you are. 
Under the carved wings of the chair. 
The hearth-glow sifting through your hair 
Turns every dim pearl to a star 
Dawn-drowned in floods of brightening air. 

I have been thinking of that night 
When all the wide hall burst to blaze 
With spears caught up, thrust fifty ways 
To find my throat, while I lay white 
And sick with joy, to think the days 

I dragged out in your hateful North — 
A slave, constrained at banquet's need 
To fill the black bull's horns with mead 
For drunken sea-thieves — were henceforth 
Cast from me as a poison weed. 

While Death thrust roses in my hands ! 
But you, who knew the flowers he had 
Were no such roses ripe and glad 



HOW THE MEAD-SLAVE WAS SET FREE 87 

As nod in my far southern lands, 
But pallid things to make men sad, 

Put back the spears with one calm hand, 
Raised on your knee my wondering head. 
Wiped off the trickling drops of red 
From my torn forehead with a strand 
Of your bright loosened hair, and said : 

" Sea-rovers ! would you kill a skald ? 
This boy has hearkened Odin sing 
Unto the clang and winnowing 
Of raven's wings. His heart is thralled 
To music, as to some strong king ; 

*' And this great thraldom works disdain 
Of lesser serving. Once release 
These bonds he bears, and he may please 
To give you guerdon sweet as rain 
To sailors calmed in thirsty seas." 

Then, having soothed their rage to rest. 
You led me to old Skagi's throne. 
Where yellow gold rims in the stone ; 
And in my arms, against my breast. 
Thrust his great harp of walrus bone. 



88 HOW THE MEAD-SLAVE WAS SET FREE 

How they came crowding, tunes on tunes ! 
How good it was to touch the strings 
And feel them thrill like happy things 
That flutter from the gray cocoons 
On hedge rows, in your gradual springs ! 

All grew a blur before my sight, 
As when the stealthy white fog slips 
At noonday on the staggering ships ; 
I saw one single spot of light, 
Your white face, with its eager lips — 

And so I sang to that. O thou 
Who liftedst me from out my shame ! 
j Wert thou content when Skagi came. 
Put his own chaplet on my brow. 
And bent and kissed his own harp-frame ? 



A DIALOGUE IN PURGATORY 

Pot disse un altro . . . . *' lo son Buonconte : 
Gio-vanna o altri non ha di me cura ; 
Per ck^ io vo tra costor con bona frontt."^ 

Seguito il terzo spirito al tecondo, 
" Ricorditi di me, che son la Piaf 
Siena mije, disfecemi Maremma. 
Salsi colui che inannellata pria 
Dttfctata w' avea colla sua gemma. ' ' 

PUROATOMO, CaMTO V. 



BUONCONTE 

Sister, the sun has ceased to shine ; 
By companies of twain and trine 
Stars gather ; from the sea 
The moon comes momently. 

On all the roads that ring our hill 
The sighing and the hymns are still : 
It is our time to gain 
Strength for to-morrow's pain. 



90 A DIALOGUE IN PURGATORY 

Yet still your eyes are wholly bent 
Upon the way that Virgil went, 
Following Sordeilo's sign, 
With the dark Florentine. 

Night now has barred their upward track : 
There where the mountain-side folds back 
And in the Vale of Flowers 
The Princes count their hours 

Those three friends sit in the clear starlight 
With the green-clad angels left and right, — 
Soul made by wakeful soul 
More earnest for the goal. 

So let us, sister, though our place 
Is barren of that Valley's grace. 
Sit hand in hand, till we 
Seem rich as those friends be. 

II 

LA PIA 

Brother, 't were sweet vour hand to feel 
In mine ; it would a little heal 
The shame that makes me poor. 
And dumb at the heart's core. 



A DIALOG JE IN PURGATORY 91 

But where our spirits felt Love's dearth, 
Down on the green and pleasant earth, 
Remains the fleshly shell, 
Love's garment tangible. 

So now our hands have naught to say : 
Heart unto heart some other way 
Must utter forth its pain, 
Must glee or comfort gain. 

Ah, no ! For souls like you and me 
Some comfort waits, but never glee : 
Not yours the young men's singing 
In Heaven, at the bride-bringing ; 

Not mine, beside God's living waters, 
Dance of the marriageable daughters. 
The laughter and the ease 
Beneath His summer trees. 

Ill 

BUONCONTE 

In fair Arezzo's halls and bowers 
My Giovanna speeds her hours 
Delicately, nor cares 
To shorten by her prayers 



92 A DIALOGUE IN ^ URGATORY 

My days upon this mount of ruth : 

If those who come from earth speak sooth. 

Though still I call and call, 

She does not heed at all. 

And if aright your words I read 
At Dante's passing, he you wed 
Dipped from the drains of Hell 
The marriage hydromel. 

O therefore, while the moon intense 
Holds yonder dreaming sea suspense. 
And round the shadowy coasts 
Gather the wistful ghosts, 

Let us sit quiet all the night, 
And wonder, wonder on the light 
Worn by those spirits fair 
Whom Love has not left bare. 

IV 

LA PIA 

Even as theirs, the chance was mine 
To meet and mate beneath Love's sign, 
To feel in soul and sense 
The solemn influence 



A DIALOGUE IN PURGATORY 93 

Which, breathed upon a man or maid, 
Maketh forever unafraid, 
Though life with death unite 
That spirit to affright, — 

Which lifts the changed heart high up. 
As the priest lifts the changed cup, 
Boldens the feet to pace 
Before God's proving face. 

just a thought beyond the blue 

The wings of the dove yearned down and through ! 
Even now I hear and hear 
How near they were, how near ! 

1 murmur not. Rightly disgraced. 
The weak hand stretched abroad in haste 
For gifts barely allowed 

The tacit, strong, and proud. 

But therefore was I so intent 

To watch where Dante onward went 

With the Roman spirit pure 

And the grave troubadour, 

Because my mind was busy then 

With the loves that wait those gentle men : 



94 A DIALOGUE IN PURGATORY 

Cunizza one; and one 
Bice, above the sun ; 

And for the other, more and less 
Than woman's near-felt tenderness, 
A million voices dim 
Praising him, praising him. 

V 

BUONCONTE 

The waves that wash this mountain's base 
Were crimson in the sun's low rays, 
When, singing high and fast, 
An angel downward passed. 

To bid some patient soul arise 
And make it fair for Paradise; 
And upward, so attended. 
That soul its journey wended; 

Yet you, who in these lower rings 
Wait for the coming of such wings, 
Turned not your eyes to view 
Whether they came for you. 

But watched, but watched great Virgil stayed 
Greeting Bordello's couchant shade, 



A DIALOGUE IN PURGATORY 95 

Which to salute him rose 
Like lion from its pose ; 

While humbly by those lords of song 
Stood he whose living limbs are strong 
To mount where Mary's bliss 
Is shed on Beatrice. 

On him your gaze was fastened, more 
Than on those great names Mantua bore ; 
Your eyes hold the distress 
Still, of that wistfulness. 

Yea, fit he seemed much love to rouse ! 
His pilgrim lips and iron brows 
Grew like a woman's, dim. 
While you held speech with him ; 

And troubled came his mortal breath 
The while I told him of my death ; 
His looks were changed and wan 
When Virgil led him on. 

VI 

LA PIA 

E'er since Casella came this morn, 
Newly o'er yonder ocean borne. 



96 A DIALOGUE IN PURGATORY 

Bound upward for the choir 
Who purge themselves in fire, 

And from that meinie he was of 
Stayed backward at my cry of love. 
To speak awhile with me 
Of life and Tuscany, 

And, parting, told us how e'er day 
Was done, Dante would come this way, 
With mortal feet, to find 
His sweetheart, sky-enshrined, — 

E'er since Casella spoke such news 
My heart has lain in a golden muse. 
Picturing him and her, 
What starry ones they were. 

And now the moon sheds its compassion 
O'er the hushed mount, I try to fashion 
The manner of their meeting. 
Their few first words of greeting. 

O well for them, with clasped hands, 
Unshamed amid the heavenly bands ! 
They hear no pitying pair 
Of old-time lovers there 



A DIALOGUE IN PURGATORY 97 

Look down and say in an undertone, 
" This latest-come, who comes alone, 
Was still alone on earth. 
And lonely from his birth." 

Nor feel a sudden whisper mar 
God's weather, " Dost thou see the scar 
That spirit hideth so ? 
Who dealt her such a blow 

" That God can hardly wipe it out ? " 
And answer, " She gave love, no doubt. 
To one who saw not fit 
To set much store by it." 



THE DAGUERREOTYPE 

This, then, is she, 

My mother as she looked at seventeen, 
When she first met my father. Young in- 
credibly, 
Younger than spring, without the faintest trace 
Of disappointment, weariness, or tean 
Upon the childlike earnestness and grace 
Of the waiting face. 
These close-wound ropes of pearl 
(Or common beads made precious by their use) 
Seem heavy for so slight a throat to wear; 
But the low bodice leaves the shoulders bare 
And half the glad swell of the breast, for news 
That now the woman stirs within the girl. 
And yet. 

Even so, the loops and globes 
Of beaten gold 
And jet 

Hung, in the stately way of old. 
From the ears' drooping lobes 
On festivals and Lord's-day of the week. 
Show all too matron-sober for the cheek, — 



THE DAGUERREOTYPE 99 

Which, now I look again, is perfect child, 
Or no — or no — 't is girlhood's very self^ 
Moulded by some deep, mischief-ridden elf 
So meek, so maiden mild. 
But startling the close gazer with the sense 
Of passions forest-shy and forest-wild. 
And delicate delirious merriments. 

As a moth beats sidewise 

And up and over, and tries 

To skirt the irresistible lure 

Of the flame that has him sure, 

My spirit, that is none too strong to-day, 

Flutters and makes delay, — 

Pausing to wonder on the perfect lips, 

Lifting to muse upon the low-drawn hair 

And each hid radiance there. 

But powerless to stem the tide-race bright, 

The vehement peace which drifts it toward the 

light 
Where soon — ah, now, with cries 
Of grief and giving-up unto its gain 
It shrinks no longer nor denies, 
But dips 

Hurriedly home to the exquisite heart of pain, — 
And all is well, for I have seen them plain. 
The unforgettable, the unforgotten eyes ! 



loo THE DAGUERREOTYPE 

Across the blinding gush of these good tears 
They shine as in the sweet and heavy years 
When by her bed and chair 
We children gathered jealously to share 
The sunlit aura breathing myrrh and thyme, 
Where the sore-stricken body made a clime 
Gentler than May and pleasanter than rhyme, 
Holier and more mystical than prayer. 

God, how thy ways are strange ! 

That this should be, even this, 

The patient head 

Which suffered years ago the dreary change ! 

That these so dewy lips should be the same 

As those I stooped to kiss 

And heard mv harrowing half-spoken name, 

A little ere the one who bowed above her, 

Our father and her very constant lover, 

Rose stoical, and we knew that she was dead. 

Then I, who could not understand or share 

His antique nobleness. 

Being unapt to bear 

The insults which time flings us for our proof, 

Fled from the horrible roof 

Into the alien sunshine merciless. 

The shrill satiric fields ghastly with dav. 

Raging to front God in his pride of sway 



THE DAGUERREOTYPE loi 

And hurl across the lifted swords of fate 

That ringed Him where He sat 

My puny gage of scorn and desolate hate 

Which somehow should undo Him, after all ! 

That this girl face, expectant, virginal. 

Which gazes out at me 

Boon as a sweetheart, as if nothing loth 

(Save for the eyes, with other presage stored) 

To pledge me troth. 

And in the kingdom where the heart is lord 

Take sail on the terrible gladness of the deep 

Whose winds the gray Norns keep, — 

That this should be indeed 

The flesh which caught my soul, a flying seed, 

Out of the to and fro 

Of scattering hands where the seedsman Mage, 

Stooping from star to star and age to age 

Sings as he sows ! 

That underneath this breast 

Nine moons I fed 

Deep of divine unrest. 

While over and over in the dark she said, 

" Blessed ! but not as happier children blessed " — 

That this should be 

Even she. . . . 

God, how with time and change 

Thou makest thy footsteps strange ! 



102 THE DAGUERREOTYPE 

Ah, now I know 

They play upon me, and it is not so. 

Why, 't is a girl I never saw before, 

A little thing to flatter and make weep, 

To tease until her heart is sore. 

Then kiss and clear the score ; 

A gypsy run-the-fields, 

A little liberal daughter of the earth. 

Good for what hour of truancy and mirth 

The careless season yields 

Hither-side the flood o' the year and yonder of 

the neap ; 
Then thank you, thanks again, and twenty light 

good-byes. — 
O shrined above the skies, 
Frown not, clear brow. 
Darken not, holy eyes ! 
Thou knowest well I know that it is thou! 
Only to save me from such memories 
As would unman me quite, 
Here in this web of strangeness caught 
And prey to troubled thought 
Do I devise 

These foolish shifts and slight ; 
Only to shield me from the afflicting sense 
Of some waste influence 

Which from this morning face and lustrous hair 
Breathes on me sudden ruin and despair. 



THE DAGUERREOTYPE 103 

In any other guise, 

With any but this girlish depth of gaze, 

Your coming had not so unsealed and poured 

The dusty amphoras where I had stored 

The drippings of the winepress of my days. 

I think these eyes foresee, 

Now in their unawakened virgin time. 

Their mother's pride in me. 

And dream even now, unconsciously, 

Upon each soaring peak and sky-hung lea 

You pictured I should climb. 

Broken premonitions come. 

Shapes, gestures visionary, 

Not as once to maiden Mary 

The manifest angel with fresh lilies came 

Intelligibly calling her by name ; 

But vanishingly, dumb. 

Thwarted and bright and wild, 

As heralding a sin-defiled. 

Earth-encumbered, blood-begotten, passionate 

man-child. 
Who yet should be a trump of mighty call 
Blown in the gates of evil kings 
To make them fall ; 

Who yet should be a sword of flame before 
The soul's inviolate door 
To beat away the clang of hellish wings j 



I04 THE DAGUERREOTYPE 

Who yet should be a lyre 

Of high unquenchable desire 

In the day of little things. — 

Look, where the amphoras, 

The yield of many days, 

Trod by my hot soul from the pulp of sell 

And set upon the shelf 

In sullen pride 

The Vineyard-master's tasting to abide — 

O mother mine ! 

Are these the bringings-in, the doings fine, 

Of him you used to praise ? 

Emptied and overthrown 

The jars lie strown. 

These, for their flavor duly nursed. 

Drip from the stopples vinegar accursed ; 

These, I thought honied to the very seal, 

Dry, dry, — a little acid meal, 

A pinch of mouldy dust, 

Sole leavings of the amber-mantling must; 

These, rude to look upon, 

But flasking up the liquor dearest won. 

Through sacred hours and hard. 

With watching and with wrestlings and with 

grief. 
Even of these, of these in chief, 
The stale breath sickens, reeking from the shard. 



THE DAGUERREOTYPE lo^ 

Nothing is left. Ay, how much less than 

naught ! 
What shall be said or thought 
Of the slack hours and waste imaginings, 
The cynic rending of the wings. 
Known to that froward, that unreckoning heart 
Whereof this brewage was the precious part, 
Treasured and set away with furtive boast ? 
O dear and cruel ghost, 
Be merciful, be just ! 
See, I was yours and I am in the dust. 
Then look not so, as if all things were well! 
Take your eyes from me, leave me to my shame, 
Or else, if gaze they must, 
Steel them with judgment, darken them with 

blame ; 
But by the ways of light ineffable 
You bade me go and I have faltered from, 
By the low waters moaning out of hell 
Whereto my feet have come. 
Lay not on me these intolerable 
Looks of rejoicing love, of pride, of happy trust 1 

Nothing dismayed ? 

By all I say and all I hint not made 

Afraid ? 

O then, stay by me ! Let 

These eyes afflict me, cleanse me, keep me yet 



io6 THE DAGUERREOTYPE 

Brave eyes and true ! 

See how the shriveled heart, that long has lain 

Dead to delight and pain> 

Stirs, and begins again 

To utter pleasant life, as if it knew 

The wintry days were through ; 

As if in its awakening boughs it heard 

The quick, sweet-spoken bird. 

Strong eyes and brave, 

Inexorable to save! 



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